


A Body of People Asking Not to Be Forgotten

by deathwailart



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Drinking, Elder Scrolls Lore, Elf Culture & Customs, F/M, Gen, Ice Skating, Presents, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-14 11:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 9,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13007052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: Twelve Skyrim Christmas/advent themed pieces writing leading up to the day, adapted to best fit the setting and a Bosmer dragonborn.





	1. Drinks

How Elrindir had come by it, he wouldn't say only that he'd gone to the trouble of dispatching a courier to Brónach, a courier who'd been dogged enough to follow whatever leads they'd found of her to the camp she'd set up by a bluff she'd cleared bandits out of, all to get her back to Whiterun. Valenwood tended to be enough to get her back, hackles rising until he'd smiled the way he always smiled, and she hadn't failed to notice that the Drunken Huntsman had been empty of everyone but him, her, and his brother in the corner.

Three Bosmer far from home, and something of it.

"You keep stricter ways than we do even here sister," he said with a smile, and she'd frozen—

One of the houses – Jarls liked to do that, liked to say 'you have done a great service to me and mine, here is your title so all know that you are beholden to me and mine but not like them, here is a walking, talking suit of armour to clatter behind you and see to all you might need, and here are the deeds for a home in my hold so all can know a hero lives here' and it was handy at the very least to have a place to drop things off with someone capable of keeping out nosy visitors – had a tree by it that she'd ignored for months on her comings and goings. Until the housecarl (why would she need to know the name, only Lydia had ever suffered Brónach with a modicum of good humour) had looked up when she'd asked what was growing. Fruit, she'd been told.

And she'd waited. She'd watched.

And she'd stayed longer than she might have otherwise on this errand and that (they hadn't liked her being there that long under their feet bringing back strange meat and only meat, declining their mead, staying up in the small hours but maybe they bred politeness into the housecarls the same way the Altmer had their pedigrees. It had been worth it: fruit, enough that had fallen from the tree not living that she'd hurried back to Whiterun with it. Lydia knew how to brew. Or knew someone who knew. Brónach didn't need to live with the smell and had left but it broke no rules, same as what Elrindir had procured somehow this late in the year when even the Khajiit were finding the trade routes troublesome from the complaints they'd groused with when she'd stopped to trade moon sugar for salt, to swap rumours by a fire.

Shorter days, darker days, days when a mouth could swallow a world and no one might notice.

"I never tried this before," she said once she burst back inside (startled Lydia half to death creeping into her own home, cold steel on her throat for the sake of a  _keg_ ) and the heat of the fire burned her cheeks as she sat across from both brothers with it cradled in her lap as one might hold an infant. "We ate the fruit if we found it. We never had it with  _Jagga_ …" To even breathe the richness of the word again, to take the first sip when the tankard was passed to her; a life in the trees left behind, the nights bodies disappeared, her arrow finding a Thalmor throat, it was hard to smile past that but she did, choked on it as if she might not get the chance then opened the keg to pass it around.

Anoriath's cheeks flushed first from it, Elrindir made a comment on the quality, Brónach pulled a face at the  _sweetness_  of it bursting on her tongue even now, at how the rest of them could stand this so often without complaint until her tankard was filled half with Jagga and half with her own brew, what might charitably be called wine sitting on top until she poked a finger in to mix it, giving it a curious sniff. (How much worse she had eaten. Had woken with between her teeth. Bone, gristle, hair, frayed cloth; the beast blood meant coming back to herself unlike the Wild Hunt, it was always coming back to herself in the end unlike so many others gone.) 

The smell was no worse than the night she'd gone drinking with what had turned out to be a daedra, and laughing, she tipped her head back to down the lot, Y'ffre's green-knotted bones unable to find fault with her even so very far from where all had become rooted.

 


	2. Reindeer

The weather having turned so severely once making her way down the seven thousand damned steps of the Throat of the World, it had been nothing short of miraculous for Brónach to drag her sorry self back to Whiterun at last. Even there the snows had piled deeper than she could recall in her time there, mutterings from the guards, their eyes fixed up as a dragon or two would circle but there were times the dragons would do only that. Circle, watch, spun loose from time without Alduin there to fix them so she shouldered past.  
  
The guard grunted but said nothing to a short Bosmer woman (whatever he recognised her as, she always lost track) when the deer, larger than her, certainly heavier than her, almost definitely warmer somehow than her, hit him in the chest as she finally let the gates shut behind her. The streets were clear for the most; some small light from Warmaiden's forge with smoke puffing from Breezehome's chimney but it wasn't Breezehome she headed for. No. Of course she would have to weave her way on frost-numbed legs up to Jorrvaskr on a street where the snow had been trampled to a thin slush that was beginning to freeze once more, feet threatening to slide out from beneath her as she went. Belethor was outside of course as she passed with a greeting mostly ignored – but the Breton looked smug enough that what salt there was to be laid down on paths, on doorsteps, much if not all had to be coming from him. Jorrvaskr though—  
  
Jorrvaskr beckoned, and the heat stole her breath away when she swung the door open. Not many up and around at this hour even for them but she kept a thief's hours, an assassin's hours, and it suited her fine to be the only one still up. She wouldn't be stopping quite yet as she passed Njada and Athis bickering with less heat than she remembered last though that wouldn't last long, maybe not as long as this would take her as she raise a hand to wave away any offers of help. Through the doors again, back out into the cold, then a door only two of them used now, her and Aela the last of the beast-blooded amongst them, and the Underforge was  _damned_  cold, her breath fogging the air but where else to work?  
  
The work would warm her after all, so laying down her supplies, removing her weapons, Brónach began butchering the deer with a careful hand as the blood flowed back into her hands, a prickle of discomfort that leapt and roared into what she could only assume would be the end result of sticking both hands in a beehive. But it was familiar, the butchery. And she'd come back as she'd said she would for the season, come back with food to share with all of them, hide to be cured or turned to leather, bone and antlers to be made into something else useful—  
  
Stone ground against stone, the knife slipped into a grip that would allow her to go for an eye if she sprang at them (too long alone, too long sneaking or hearing the voice of a dead woman whispering in her ear) when it could only be Aela but the body was too large, too heavy.   
  
"You're back." Farkas with a smile in his voice since she was too snow-blind in the dark to see him well. "We didn't think you'd make it but Njada said you came out this way, or that it looked like you, wearing a deer."  
  
"It's dinner. Some of it at least, or most, I see the way all of you eat." A deer this size could feed her for days if she cured it but if this lasted two nights with all of them she'd be lucky, and the sourness must have shown because he laughed, heavy boots ringing out as he came to sit by her.   
  
She'd missed him. In itself not strange, she tended to miss some people whenever she left for too long but missing him always tended to surprise her as she leant back to press her frozen face to his warm throat, arms wrapping around her. "You're cold as an ice wraith's teeth," Farkas groused as he pulled back to look at her again, a crease in one cheek from his pillow not quite gone, war paint still smudged beneath his eyes.  
  
"I need to finish-"  
  
"It's cold here, get Aela to help in the morning Harbinger," and that—  
  
Well it was tempting. And it was cold. The fire kicked out to ash in the Underforge as the pair of them raced into Jorrvaskr, Farkas sleep-rumpled still, and Brónach streaked in blood up to her elbows. The guards always complained of the howling anyway.


	3. Snow

Horizontal. The snow falling thick and fast was falling  _horizontal_  over Ivarstead, over the seven thousand steps, down from the Throat of the World where the dragons came to pay homage to the second eldest now eldest without Alduin left to them. And it was through that blinding snow that stung the few bare inches of her face red raw that Brónach battled, sure-footed over slick stone past the markers with their ragged banners torn to shreds; perhaps with fewer pilgrims in this season the ice wraiths had nothing to turn their teeth on but stone and cloth, the arrows she fired to break them apart piece by piece until they shattered screaming into silence. These angry hissing pieces of Nirn given back to it, her arrows collected, her footsteps shrouded once again.  
  
Where she fell through when the crust cracked beneath her, not so much.   
  
The Greybeards were bent in meditation when she tracked snowmelt through the hall, left a puddle behind her with the offerings from below that they might sort through, her own things set by a small stone chair by a fire she'd piled furs into once that they'd never disturbed. Her ways were respected enough here; they had called out to her, shaking the mountains with their voices, and if she preferred not to sleep in the beds with wooden frames with their linen blankets for the guilt that gnawed at the marrow of her bones then Arngeir who was the voice of all three said nothing.  
  
Her voice lashed out to crack the sky that she might see once she set out again, up the mountain again to where the air was thin, only Paarthurnax stretched out atop his wall with his wings spread. Snow drifted through the holes where his scales had given way to time, she huddled beneath either way, let his breath wash over then spoke back in kind. (Avalanche, one of the Nords had told her that early in her time there when they'd watched it from a long way off, the ale sour on his breath, her thirsting for years and thunderbugs.)  
  
"Here you are, in all this," and his voice had the snow shaking loose that Brónach crept back, swept it from her hood. Amused, perhaps, that the World-Eater's bane would look such a miserable creature with gritted teeth against the barrage. (But were these too not the bones of the earth that he perched upon? His bones?)  
  
"You asked me something before, about learning the Thu'um?"  
  
Those great wings flapped once, twice, three times, ash, and frost, and snow drifted lazily down about her as she stood in his shadow. "Geh, and you said that you liked this world."  
  
"I am loved of the bones of the earth, tree-sap young. But," she huffed out a breath through her teeth that burned worse than the times she shed her skin for the one that Hircine had given the Companions long ago that she had yet to give up. "But now he's gone. And he was one third of time; time ends, time always ends, and what men call Akatosh is time, and Auri-El is time stretched out-"  
  
The wind rose, stole her words into breathless shivering when her teeth rattled almost out of her jaw for how hard she clamped it shut until the great dragon lowered his head to hers, heat enough to buckle the knees, and spoke that she trembled. "You have already done it, why ask?"  
  
"I go back to the earth," she shrugged though it was never so easy for them, not since Lorkhan had fixed mortality in the mer only it didn't stick in her same as it did the Altmer. "Or to the ones carving up a piece of me. Unless having the soul of a dov changes it."  
  
"Stand at the place where time was wounded to say these words," Paarthurnax laughed as much as any dragon might ever laugh at anyone in the world, the mountain shifting beneath her feet as he did as it had when the Greybeards called her by the name etched in her that she hadn't known until that day. "You tore at his soul-"  
  
"I  _know_ ," she hissed, and even for her it wasn't—it was the ice wraiths, it was Nirn manifested of itself, before bones of the earth made of stone. The snow whirled upwards into her eyes. Breath and focus. Breath and focus. Who was the elder when time ending had been ended by the soul of his own made flesh anew? It was a long time before they spoke again.  
  
What need did they have for time again.


	4. Carols

Solitude had never been a favourite place to be, and that was before the bard's college had decide to put on some  _performance_  when Brónach had stopped by to stay there while on work for the Dark Brotherhood. It kept her out of the eyes of the Imperials, any stray Thalmor lingering around about the place given all that had happened during the peace summit when everyone had made their way to the Throat at the World for a seat at the table. Elisif wouldn't be likely to look here either.   
  
Still, it left her with one problem: the celebrations.  
  
The damned celebrations waiting for the damned merchant to show up with his goods while she sat around people singing the same songs again. And again. And  _again_.   
  
Holing up to repair weapons and gear would get her only so far. Viarmo would be there. Viarmo would always be there, head peering around her door, inviting her to get involved, not so subtly as he might like to think until at last she cracked. If it hadn't looked so obvious she'd have stayed in Proudspire but with just her and Jordis rattling around, it was always cold in the stone manor, and she'd learnt long ago never to kill where you slept if it could be helped. Not after the last incidents in Solitude.   
  
So the college it was, and the bards it would, and Viarmo's pestering she would suffer until she emerged from her room to find something to shut him up before he was added to the count that would undoubtedly make her successful attempt on the merchant's life more complicated. The smile on the Altmer's face when she agreed had her fingers itching for the dagger at one hip – and no, she would not be removing the armour she had on thank you, she would tug the cowl down alone – but she hadn't ever been a  _good_  singer. Not terrible. Not so tremendously out of tune but never one with the strength in her voice (funny that, when she shouted down dragons after all) to carry a tune with so few singers to them. If the musicians were louder—  
  
No one said anything when she beat the drum, picturing Viarmo's head tucked beneath her arm in its stead.  
  
Some long thing about a Good King they hadn't the right number of men and women to split it evenly for where her cracking voice stuck out sorely. Something about the bleak midwinter that was accurate at least.  
  
Horribly accurate.  
  
"It's so good to- to have you here for this," Viarmo hiccupped to her one night when they'd broken out the good wine in some pre-performance tradition since Elisif had lifted the ban that she'd no doubt be reinstating the instant she saw Brónach's face amidst them unless she tucked herself out of sight, sloped off. It was tradition. To celebrate. Apparently. Well this year they either had something to celebrate or he needed all the courage he could get from the glass in his hand as he weaved alarmingly before she gave him a little shove into the seat behind that he collapsed into heavily.  
  
"Strange luck to have me turning up again for these things," she agreed in the vain hope the wine would send him off to sleep. Maybe she'd go to Proudspire. Even if she hadn't the key on her, there were lockpicks that never failed her. "Is it like the burning of what's-his-name?"  
  
"Olaf?"  
  
"That's the one."  
  
"We have all the words this time." Viarmo sounded irritated by it, ignoring her arched brow as well as her little snort.  
  
"Then it's definitely fortunate I'm here, nothing gets done without me."   
  
And if he too ignored the sarcasm in her voice then it was because he'd fallen asleep, glass dangling from his fingertips as he began snoring. She could do this. A night of terrible singing in the freezing night air in front of Elisif and the rest of the court all trotted out for the season because it was something  _she'd_  done, wait around for her target to get their sorry hide then slope off back to the wilds.   
  
There'd almost certainly be contract work taken out as a result of this anyway, she could almost hear the Night Mother's whisper in her ear already.


	5. First Winter

"You know," Farkas rumbled from beneath Brónach, jolting her back into wakefulness from a dream that had blurred at the edges, "this is our first real winter together."  
  
"We knew each other before, I spent my first winter in Skyrim here in Jorrvaskr," she pointed out, groggy, confused, one hand behind her to haul the thick furs she preferred on her bed here instead of blankets up over her shoulders where they shifted down. Cold. It was cold here, she'd been  _warm_ , asleep, warm, comfortable—  
  
"Yeah," he agreed, then the world shifted as she found herself rolled over, both of them on their sides with her head under his chin which wasn't so bad if she hadn't been out late with Aela, both of them racing through the snow until they'd come across a Thalmor patrol with a prisoner. The prisoner might have frozen to death for all Brónach knew now but they'd torn out throats. Left bodies in the middle of the path to be found when the thaw came before they'd come back to themselves, and she'd been restless, wild when she'd come charging through the Underforge then down through Jorrvaskr proper to drag Farkas to bed with her.  
  
He hadn't complained.  
  
Not even now when her fingers found the marks she'd left the night before, only a smile she could just about see when she craned her neck but he was hot as the forge against her so why would she ever want to move away from that? "But this is the first real winter," he said, when she'd thought the discussion might be over.  
  
"The first one since we've been married."  
  
"Exactly."  
  
Sometimes—well it wasn't that she  _forgot_ , she never forgot, it was that she wasn't very good at this as someone who wasn't around half the time, and who'd spent her last winter lying low when Delphine had been haranguing her over the Thalmor Embassy affair that she hadn't been able to think about, too fresh, too raw, too everything that Delphine didn't understand no matter the history of the Blades.   
  
"I hope for your sake and mine that you have nothing planned unless it's staying in this bed or fetching food and drink." How little she was able to indulge in anything like that after all, how seldom she allowed herself that sort of privilege to stretch out her limbs and relax for a spell without her bow or knife close to hand. A locked door no one would dare to pick or breach unless some emergency demanded otherwise. Solid companions between her and everything else.  
  
Someone sharing her bed that knew what ran in her blood, who didn't flinch from it when she bit, when she clawed, or the nights when she woke shaking or rattling apart from things she thought she'd pushed down deep enough that still dragged themselves out, leering at her with bloody mouths.  
  
"What, you going soft on me? No long hunt through the snow-"  
  
"I did that. Twice already."  
  
He smiled, and she let him haul her up for a kiss that no longer tasted of last night's blood in her mouth, and she was content to twist just enough to have him stretched out on top of her, solid, warm, alive, that beating heart in his chest she could place a hand on.  
  
(Wasn't that the strangest thing, that even here where the land was colder, harder, the people bred for it that still there was the same trust to place a heart in the hands of another. Same as her parents had done in Valenwood.   
  
Dangerous to do it with a Bosmer who might eat that heart to keep herself warm and alive in the winter.)  
  
She bit at his mouth. He laughed into hers. The stone cracked when her voice echoed off the walls with her legs over his hips.


	6. Skating

When Lydia had asked Brónach for bone over their supper at night, it had been enough to send the Bosmer woman into a coughing fit so severe she nearly inhaled the broth she'd previously been enjoying. How many times had her housecarl complained about her dragging back bones? About the clutter in Breezehome? About what would happen if the guards had reason to search one day yet here she was, asking for bone as if it were the most normal thing to do when the two of them were sat at a table that for Brónach at least tended to be reserved for spreading out whatever she'd gathered. She'd choose what she wanted, what she needed, what she'd leave here or take elsewhere. Maybe she'd dress a kill at it but she could still count all the times she'd eaten at it.  
  
"You alright?" Lydia asked, with a concerned frown, her own bowl hastily set down with a clutter so she could thump Brónach's back until the wheezing passed. Strong arms. Then again, she was a walking suit of armour, in training to be that all her life, sworn to carry all of her thane's burdens though she'd perhaps never imagined any of it quite so literally or for the collection.  
  
"Fine, thank you." The rarest of courtesies extended to the one housecarl with a name she never forgot, one that actually came with her sometimes, who had a sense of humour about her—and she wanted bone. Was it a joke? What had she brought back with her lately? "I just—last time, I was making armour for Farkas and I couldn't keep it at Jorrvaskr-"  
  
"You had damn near half a dragon in here and I still don't know how you managed that but I only need four bones, and shaped. You're the only person I know who can shape them right."  
  
That was flattering. Flattering enough that she picked up her soup again to mull it over, studiously not looking at Lydia who sat there, waiting, patient as you please. Evidently something they taught housecarls, some special lessons on how to deal with particularly strange and recalcitrant thanes who had strange habits, strange collections, and even stranger friends who stopped by sometimes. "What am I shaping the bones for?"  
  
"To strap to our feet."  
  
" _Our_  feet."  
  
"Yes," and there was a little hint of smugness that pricked Brónach's ears up despite common sense or self-preservation dictating otherwise. "Don't tell me you've been in Skyrim this long without going skating."  
  
Which was how Brónach found herself spending the coming days experimenting until she settled on the leg bones from a deer she still had (and wasn't it fortunate, Lydia, that she kept these things instead of tossing them aside?) to fashion them and the leather straps, ready ahead of the journey further northwards out past Winterhold they'd be making together. The ice froze solid there as she'd been told endlessly by anyone she stopped to talk to whether she wanted to know it or not so they set off, and Brónach allowed herself to become used to having another body alongside hers again, another mouth to feed who looked away when the meat was men or mer, who clanked less than she thought.  
  
(But the armour had been a gift, dragonplate, made to fit her perfectly though she'd thrust it at her with scarce a word before leaving.)  
  
Finally as their breath fogged the air, when even the horkers retreated from the chill, they reached where the ice was thickest now at the edge of Winterhold stretching out to the horizon. They'd made camp in the safety of a cave cleared out – the bear pelt would make a fine sleeping bag – and all that remained was to lash the blades to their feet. Brónach wobbled.   
  
"You've done this before?" She asked as she clenched the muscles in her legs to keep herself upright, she with all her balance leaping around Valenwood in her girlhood until she'd had to leave now trembling as a newborn with all her weight resting upon two thin blades along the centre of each narrow foot.   
  
"Not for a few years but you don't forget," Lydia replied, pushing off with a grace usually reserved for battle, for carving a foe into several pieces. Brónach was in awe. Brónach was envious. "Come on." A hand reached out…  
  
And Brónach flailed her arms to keep herself upright, gripped Lydia tight enough it had to hurt as both legs threatened to splay wildly once she was on. How far the snow seemed now. What if the ice cracked—But she was being pulled along, only able to glance back as it disappeared at an alarming rate, swearing that the shrieking was only the frozen wind, not her terror thank you very much Lydia.


	7. Gifts

With the blessing of Nocturnal once again firmly fixed upon the Thieves Guild, tis the season so Brynjolf said with a flush in his cheeks from the Black-Briar Reserve he'd been drinking much of the night in the cold, damp of the Ragged Flagon, for gifts. Riften hadn't fallen prey to the snow same as other places though it had been pounded by a relentless, driving sleet intent on turning the streets grey with slippery, icy filth that Brónach privately found fitting. Of course this being the Thieves Guild with their fortunes newly returned to them, it had to be marked in some way.  
  
"Lass," Brynjolf had repeated it three times already and it was hard to keep her face fixed on a spot just over his shoulder when she could  _feel_  Vex staring her down, daring her to crack. " _Lass_ , I've an idea."  
  
"You hinted as much." They'd gotten this far only for Brynjolf to forget, much as he'd forgotten to keep out of the way of the long dangling bone traps set by the Falmer that time they'd gone with Karliah to confront Mercer but  _tis the season_ , and for Brynjolf, there was a rare charity that Brónach could extend.  
  
Looking extremely proud of himself, Brynjolf attempted to sit up straighter, turned alarmingly green, then thought better of it instead raising the blue bottle her way to waft the ale she'd been breathing on his breath for too long now. "Gifts. We get each other gifts." (Sometimes, it was a good thing he was so damned charming the rest of the time, he was a mess when he was drunk. Most of them were.  
  
If she ever managed to get thunderbugs to Skyrim…oh what nights she'd have with all of them.)  
  
"We do gifts in Valenwood too. I think they do gifts everywhere," she paused though, tipping her head to the side, "well, Altmer likely have a list a mile long from the Thalmor for them but still. Gifts."  
  
"No, no, no, listen—"  
  
"Believe me, Brynjolf, I've been  _trying_ -"  
  
"We steal each other a gift. Ideas in a- a- a boot for your head."  
  
From behind Brynjolf, Vex spluttered ale all over her front and over the table. Brónach, somehow used to dealing with this level of utter nonsense (was this what her father had wished for her, sending his last remaining living daughter from Valenwood that she might live, that the Thalmor might not take her too in retribution for the life of their Justiciar?) managed to simply sigh. "A boot for your head. A hat."  
  
" _Yes_."  
  
And since he looked like he might cry, she'd made an excuse about having to go see a priest about a mace – and once that hadn't been an excuse so much as an act to be carried out in the name of a daedra – then slipped out to head for the Sepulcher. After all, if this was Thieves Guild business then of course she'd have to let Karliah know and get in the running for it, the three Nightingales would have to bend their heads together in the shadows.   
  
As soon as Brynjolf sobered up.  
  
Nothing quite like a Bosmer breakfast left out for him with strict instructions for that, a traumatised courier delivering a message she swore to keep as she did some of the more interesting ones but it sounded a solid one. Interesting. Time consuming too and that'd keep her out of the eyes of some people looking for her to do things she had absolutely no interest in doing, leave her be attend to your own problems.   
  
Of course hers would be the most elaborate one, Guildmaster and all, and of course it had been rigged since they were thieves and that was part of the point of it but Brónach had no complaints about fetching Idgrod Ravencrone's underthings with whatever warmth there was to be found with them with both her fellow Nightingales there to prove that she had done it. Karliah left the Sepulcher infrequently, Brynjolf the same with Riften, Brónach prowled Skyrim avoiding the Holds as long as possible before she had some need to venture there. It wouldn't be a hardship. Handling the old crone might. Seeing her might possibly blind her.   
  
But a long trip, three of them camping together with turns on watch, sharing bedrolls together?   
  


* * *

  
  
Three Nightingales stood in a Jarl's bedroom, an older woman fast asleep, unaware of three shrouded figures or that one had thrown her underwear into the face of another as the third laughed quietly behind her cowl.  
  
"'Tis the season," Brónach said, taking Karliah by the hand to creep out the way they'd come, out into a frozen night as Brynjolf came tearing after them.


	8. Tree

Someone, somewhere once took it upon themselves to teach Brónach the lesson of no good deed going unpunished, a person that she could throttle unless the lesson hadn't been taught by life itself from looking back at all that she'd packed into what was so little time for a Bosmer. Trapped before the Gildergreen with no easy escape, even the mad old priest not ranting before the steps leading up to Dragonsreach, she managed to hold in the flinch as Lydia drove her elbow into her ribs when she winced.  
  
"Stop it," the housecarl coughed. Brónach was already trying to look in the direction of Jorrvaskr's steps where the Companions might all be watching the farce from, wondering how hard it was for her shield brothers and sisters to hold in the laughter. If they were even bothering.  
  
"Stop what," she snapped back quietly as she could, adjusting her hood against the snow as Danica continued with a prayer that hadn't allowed the priestess to draw breath, or so it seemed, in the past ten minutes.  
  
"Whatever your face is doing."  
  
That was just Brónach's face, which she might have said but Lydia was clutching her bottle of mead as if it were a lifeline (it was, if Brónach had had something strong and alcoholic to see her through this then she'd be drinking for all of Tamriel, not just Skyrim) so she kept her mouth shut, attempted to relax her jaw, and continued to ignore Danica. If she'd known that restoring the tree would result in anything like  _this_  she wouldn't have bothered. When the summons had come about it she'd tried to escape but seemingly everyone had conspired to keep her in Whiterun long enough to be part of it, the one who'd brought life back, praise be to Kynareth.  
  
"Y'ffre's green-knotted bones, how long have we been standing here?" She asked Lydia when the minutes continued to drag by, the folk lucky enough to be near the fences leaning against them, not even the guards bothering to do anything about that. Seating had of course gone immediately. Balgruuf and the rest of the Jarl's household were starting to flag save Irileth who stood upright as ever with a face like thunder at proceedings so that made two of them at least who'd rather be anywhere but here.   
  
With a sigh Brónach swore she could feel, Lydia knocked back more of the mead before fixing her with a look. "Not even an hour. And before you ask, there's at least as much time left to go, and no, you can't go sloping off. Guest of honour."  
  
 _Should have left it to rot_ , Brónach thought spitefully, not for the first time but there had been Danica's story, there had been a tree, aching, hurting, wounded, and her heart had been home once again so painfully that she'd nearly felt her legs go out from under her. Nothing like the great trees with their vines and platforms that her whole life had been spent in but it had bothered her to walk past it day after day before she'd been able to do something. Seeing it bloom again—that had felt right.  
  
Even knowing they'd be honouring hadn't felt so bad until the specifics had come out.  
  
Until the bards had arrived. Heads bent together. Composing.  
  
Why people had given gifts to the tree too, she couldn't understand that, wouldn't take them either when they belonged to the tree – there was a reason she'd raided her alchemy satchel for all the things potent enough to smoke, it was why it was only her and Lydia standing where they were, juniper berry mead, burnt insect smoke enough to keep even the most dedicated lickspittles from them – but someone would in the night. No, it was the next part she dread because the bards had arrived then the children had all disappeared for the most, no longer underfoot when she tried to get anywhere, chasing each other, talking about their hard lives without prompting, telling her they'd fight anyone. (She liked that one, that child had spirit.)  
  
No. It was what was about to happen now Danica had finally shut up, voice worn down to a rasp. The bards trotted out with their lutes, their drums, their pipes to form a half circle by the left of the Gildergreen, and before it the children of Whiterun in their finest clothes, all of the beaming. All of them ready to belt out an ode to the Gildergreen and to Kynareth tunelessly.  
  
Even Lydia took a hit from the pipe before it was done.


	9. Sleigh Ride

"Listener!" Cicero shrieked in just the tone of voice that sent a chill right down Brónach's spine in the very worst way as she left the thankfully near-dead tavern full of resolutely unhelpful people unwilling to part with any information on the Penitus Oculatus she was still tracking down from time to time as they sometimes passed through. Imperial sympathisers, she'd note it down, a place to avoid, to be slow to help if a dragon ever appeared. It didn't explain why Cicero seemed to be bouncing from foot to foot the way that he was as he peered out from the direction of the stables.  
  
And the body. Slumped by the carriage.  
  
The horse at least didn't seem bothered, that wasn't something she needed when she was already in a mood that was most of the way to foul, but given what most of the horses in Skyrim tended to see then probably only the strong survived long enough to be riding material anyway.   
  
"Cicero," hopefully it was patience in her voice, at this point she was tired, cold, ready to be anywhere that wasn't this forsaken village too small to even be worthy of being on the map but worthy enough to be frequented by agents, likely for that reason, "what happened."  
  
"Well, Listener, poor poor Cicero came in here to warm himself – so cold out here, so very cold, colder than poor Mother…"  
  
It was something she'd learnt in time around him even before sparing his life that you picked and chose what words to pay attention to with Cicero. One in every half dozen usually got you the main thrust of the tale. Here it was Cicero, shelter, a disagreement, a stabbing. Not that she could blame him, the idea of slipping her skin to howl them all down and go for the throat had been so tempting she'd been able to taste it. Of course that'd have the agents on her. On the Dark Brotherhood again. It might attract the Silver Hand after she'd heard some disturbing rumours about them or the damned Vigilants that looked at her strangely, perhaps suspecting but never going so far as to confirm it.  
  
She and Cicero had walked here. A long,  _long_  walk. At one point she'd summoned Lucien's ghost just to give Cicero someone to talk  _to_  rather than at her back but since bedding down for the night wasn't going to be an option – even if she'd had a broken leg, Brónach knew in her bones that she'd crawl from here to wherever the next village would be, no matter how long it took her – she looked to the horse and cart. Looked to Cicero.   
  
"We're going, it's Karthwasten next. You know how to steer this?"   
  
"Oh yes, oh  _yes_  Listener, it will be a  _delight_ \--"  
  
Swinging their packs into the back of the cart, she climbed up next to Cicero gingerly, swearing when he cracked the reins hard as the horse thundered out, the body left behind. Not her kill, not her problem, a miserable place like this who was going to care, the guards had all been too busy sitting around filling themselves with bread or cheap ale to even lift their eyes to her when she'd gone from tavern owner to drunkard to bard to brawler in hopes of  _something_. Maybe it'd be doing them a favour.  
  
Or maybe Cicero would get them both killed first, careening around a tight bend at breakneck speed with the wind whistling by her ears, cold enough to have her eyes watering as it whipped her hood back. He was laughing next to her, recounting a story she could hardly even hear about blood in the snow though that only had her thinking of the murders in Windhelm months prior. The cart veered worryingly on roads slick with black ice but that only served to have Cicero urging the horse faster, over the whinnies. The lanterns either side of them swayed back and forth, back and forth, creaking with the strain.   
  
A glass panel from hers broke, shards flying up to scratch her cheek. Cicero slowed the horse at her hissing only to start cackling again; people did this at this time of year, she reminded herself. Either bundled up in the back of a cart or hired one out themselves, went out late in the night when the sky was clear to enjoy themselves. They didn't go hurtling after Imperials at speeds that'd kill the damned horse and themselves with a mad jester for their only companion.  
  
She should have just piled up the rest of the village in the stable with whatever sorry bastard had owned the horse and cart prior to this but the Dark Brotherhood would at least eat well when she and Cicero dragged themselves back, who'd be able to tell what meat she was serving them?


	10. Party

Solitude glittered in mid-winter with an array of important faces there to pay homage to Elisif, resplendent even as her mourning continued atop a throne that showed no signs of ever becoming more secure the longer the ceasefire hammered out to the chagrin of the Imperials and the delight of the Stormcloaks at the Throat of the World dragged on. But some things were tradition, such as festivities at the Blue Palace. Somewhat astonished to find herself accorded an invite, extended to her housecarl (Jordis having done so little to associate herself with Brónach beyond being attached to her since the status of thane had been bestowed) as well as to one guest, she'd dragged Farkas along. He hadn't needed much dragging. Going off to travel together, weapons strapped to them, hunting on the way, staying in a different house for a while before they made their way back? It'd be appealing if it weren't for the party that conjured images of the Thalmor Embassy with less opportunity for murder.  
  
That Farkas had stood between her and Castle Dour spoke volumes.  
  
That he'd elected to polish up his Companions armour when they could've gotten away with anything else? Well she was glad she'd brought him.   
  
"The food here's tiny," he complained at her elbow, jolting her back from where she'd been glaring daggers at Tullius who'd of course been invited, it would have been a slight not to of course but it didn't mean she had to like it or go near him. Not a soul could prove a damned thing about the Emperor or his cousin's death sitting firmly at her feet, she'd escaped the guards very neatly, otherwise the night would have gone very differently. (A more interesting direction perhaps.)  
  
"That's what happens with these places. I had to go in the kitchens once," she'd talked around it, the way she did with absences that Farkas wouldn't like to hear about because some parts of her life didn't come home with her, "and it was…it was strange? I've never seen a kitchen like that."  
  
"We're not staying all night are we?"  
  
Brónach laughed at the look of alarm on his face the longer she took to answer. "Y'ffre no, I need to stay long enough they don't complain about their Thane – Whiterun doesn't care, nowhere else cares – but we'll be going soon." He sagged in relief as she spoke; his armour seemed to strain with it. "Is there anything here that's just meat?"  
  
"The crab things." He lifted the whole platter from under the nose of some Altmer who scoffed in disgust that she took it despite how dubious Farkas sounded as she poked at it. "Don't know what the bottom bit is."  
  
She poked. Sniffed it. Poked again. "Mushroom." Popping it in her mouth, she gagged, forcing it down. "The whole thing tastes like giant's toe left rotting three days in the sun."  
  
Wearing the hide from Hircine over the least offensive leathers she owned, a Breton that could only be one of the servants or perhaps even the chef strode past with a huff, offended by a Bosmer palate no doubt. The whole affair was giving her a headache, and Falk was launching into another speech, Erikur ready to match him because these sorts of things turned into contests when everyone was gathered together. One of the mages whose name she'd forgotten was in danger of catching fire where she'd fallen asleep with her wine in hand but whether that would be enough to stop them, Brónach sincerely doubted it.  
  
"Come on," she murmured, taking Farkas by the hand to start steering them both out of the worst of the throng attempting to listen attentively to the newest drivel, "I have an idea while they're busy before we go back to the house here."  
  
"I thought we weren't staying?"  
  
"So you don't want to see if we can break someone's bed while they're stuck listening to  _that_  without having whatever guards are stuck on patrol around the rest of the palace come charging in?"   
  
"Now  _that_ ," and suddenly she was being crowded against the wall as they rounded a corner, cold stone at her back, one huge hand cupping the back of her head as Farkas bent to kiss her as she used his armour to find purchase, up on her toes, "is the best thing I've heard all night."  
  
Both her hands were caught in his (unfair, even if she could wriggle free, find another way to break the grip or get out if she really wanted to, that wasn't the point) and pinned above her head as her heart hammered in her chest, one of his thighs urging hers apart until she moaned loudly into his mouth—  
  
"Aren't you meant to be the quiet one?" Breathless as Farkas was, the teasing fell flat but she still tried to kick at him as he let her go, laughing as she cursed.  
  
"We're finding a bedroom then I'll show you."  
  
"Can't wait dear."


	11. Snowball Fight

Hitting her square in the back before she was able to dodge it, Brónach yelped, twisting around to fire back immediately, the same continuous motion that she'd learnt years ago, but today she wasn't going for her arrows. Today she reached down instead of behind, a handful of snow packed tight not an arrow, no bow to draw, aim, release only her arm to hurl the snow as hard as she could at the nearest face. It was running as soon as she did, not even taking the chance to savour the outraged shriek she tore from her victim as she raced behind cover with a panting laugh. Her teeth were chattering, fingers numb now but she wasn't about to admit defeat.  
  
"Brónach!" Karliah shouted from her left, and any other day it would have been the two of them against Brynjolf, but today? Today there were no alliances between the three Nightingales. Another trip that had taken Karliah from the Sepulcher, Brynjolf from the Ratway, Brónach from the wilds she'd been hunting in search of riches full of Falmer and traps no one else could disarm but the three of them.  
  
But it'd didn't stop them from having some fun on the way.  
  
The Nightingale armour, regrettably, wasn't quite so thick as the Thieves Guild armour, or her furs. It's what made today so much fun when there wasn't a rush to get to the ruins, the camp made, dinner caught by Brónach on the way.   
  
Crouching, she tried to edge away from Karliah who called her name again, perhaps still shaking snow out of her eyes as another barrage shot past her from Brynjolf; a small ledge was close by and up she went, gathering snow once she'd hunkered down to pelt him back, shrieking when he landed a hit above her that sent a heavy covering of snow down to blanket her. Shaking it off without giving herself away was impossible, and Karliah caught up with her as she tried, forcing her to scramble away, taking her snowballs with her. A few were hurtled behind, another Brynjolf's way before she charged at him to send them both crashing into a snowbank.  
  
"Oh don't you dare," he began as she forced a snowball directly into his face, her fingers finding the fastenings on his armour for the warm skin sure to be underneath. "Don't you--  _Shor's bones_!"  
  
Laughing, Brónach would've shoved her face against his neck too if it hadn't been full of melting snow right as Karliah pounced on top of both of them, forcing Brynjolf deeper into the snow with a huff as the breath was forced out of his lungs under their combined weight. Her hood was pulled back by the Dunmer, warm mouth at her throat as fingers slipped under her armour too.  
  
"I win," Karliah announced.  
  
"Cheating," she complained.  
  
"What's honest to any of us?" Brynjolf asked, shoving enough that Brónach started hauling him out of the snow with Karliah's help. "Good incentive to cheat today too, we all know what the winner gets."  
  
Tugging Karliah into a kiss with a hand still caught in Brynjolf's armour to keep her footing in the thick snow, Brónach would've agreed when that had been the agreement the whole way for whatever they were doing: whoever won the challenge they'd set slept in the middle where it was warmest, protected from the worst of the chill by two warm bodies with all the furs they'd been able to carry with them. Brynjolf nudged his way in as soon as they'd broken apart, almost before she'd even caught her breath but that meant she got to watch them after, the snow melting in their hair, his flushed cheeks, Karliah's hands unable to stay still.  
  
"Back to camp, let's go," Brónach urged, tugging someone – she didn't want to turn around and check now – along with her on the way. "I'm not doing it out here in the snow. Not even for the two of you."  
  
There weren't many better ways to keep warm than this out here, breathless and wild with the two of them. Identical sets of armour peeled off on the floor to dry, them beneath the furs with Karliah in the middle since she'd won until Brónach looked to Brynjolf who smirked back at her raised eyebrow. Catching Karliah's wrists in her hands where she could still kiss her, nip at her ears, it still let Brónach watch where Brynjolf was kissing his way down the third Nightingale's body while she tried to squirm free.  
  
"Cheating," Karliah moaned.  
  
"Good incentive to cheat," Brónach replied. Brynjolf's mouth had far better things to be doing to repeat himself now.


	12. Dinner

For the first time since the untimely deaths of both Skjor and Kodlak, since a new Harbinger had been found in the shape of Brónach sat between Farkas and Aela at the middle of the table facing the door, Vilkas to the left of Farkas in a seat that might have been the one of higher honour if any of them believed in lording it over one another or anything like that. Honour was enough here, so Vilkas sat near the head of the table as they finished laying out the food that had been prepared for the better part of the night and the day before. (Tilma had been given the days before off, the cleaning up she'd need to do after necessitated it.)  
  
There weren't so many of them with Tilma gone, Eorlund and Vignar with their own family though they'd promised to stop by later in the night to join them as was tradition Brónach had been assured, but the rest of them including Brill had remained to celebrate together. A family. A family currently setting a table with enough food she was sure she could hear the legs groaning as they did so, especially once the stag she'd caught so recently was added to it. Of all nights, this was one where her food choices weren't about to be looked at oddly.  
  
Not after the combined efforts she and Aela had gone through to see them well-supplied.  
  
Stews, soups, haunches, meat on the bone, all of it provided by the two of them and their bows then cooked all the ways they knew how; Aela had been surprised by how well Brónach knew mushrooms until the story had come out over the long hours of taking the kills to pieces sat alone. So there was even a soup Brónach might eat herself. Someone – Ria, it had the look of Ria about it – had managed to get hold of a dangerous amount of sweet rolls. A whole stockpile of the things that Torvar was reaching for—  
  
"Hey!" Vilkas slapped his hand away so suddenly that the crack shocked the room into silence, the other man clutching his hand to his chest the way a child did upon testing to see if the cooking pot above the freshly doused flames was indeed as hot as a parent or elder had said that it was. " _After_  the meal," then turning to Farkas with a shake of the head he continued- "children."  
  
"Don't look at me; she slapped your hands first."  
  
Brónach exchanged a look with Aela only to find her shield-sister as clueless as her; Njada was trying not to smirk though so that wouldn't be too hard once they drink was flowing.   
  
"Times like this," Athis began once Torvar sat heavily in his seat without glancing at the sweet rolls (once Brónach sat down after fetching a final plate of meat seasoned out by the forge late into the night she understood the allure of them – the smell of brandy rolled off them, definitely Ria, that was an Imperial thing) as tankards were passed about to be filled, "I miss ash yams. That and scrib jelly."  
  
"Not the scrib jelly again." Njada groaned.  
  
"I heard word about strange things from someone who said they'd come from Solstheim," Aela added as Brónach wondered what, exactly, scrib jelly was even as her stomach started to turn at the idea of it. "Floating creatures with tentacles, traders might end up with something like what you miss."  
  
"I could ask around," Brónach offered, and Athis smiled at her. Unsettling as ever with those red eyes, and she quickly made to start on her dinner which seemed to be the cue the rest had all been waiting on, a little smile hidden behind the leg joint she tore into with relish.  
  
Elder speaks first, Paarthurnax had said atop the Throat of the World when they'd met the first time after fighting her way through a cold that was colder than anything she'd ever known, and it looked like for midwinter meal amongst the Companions, Harbinger eats first then everyone else gets to tuck in. She'd earned it. They all had. A long, hard year with Skyforge steel now behind them and a path ahead, her leg knocking against Farkas' comfortably.   
  
Njada and Athis made it a whole two courses before fighting. Torvar was drunk on the sweet rolls Ria had turned her own fair hand to. By the same time next year the deer population of Whiterun would have recovered from the hunt for it to start all over again.


End file.
